


Vacation

by Elektra Pendragon (elekdragon)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-28
Updated: 2003-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elekdragon/pseuds/Elektra%20Pendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoda wasn't always the wrinkled old creature we know.  800 years ago he was a Padawan, just like anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vacation

Boisterous laughter filled the fifth salle, so that even in the darkness, one could sense the immense emptiness of the room. Jedi Knight Aric Tolien carefully stepped through the darkness, letting his expanded senses feel out where any obstacles might be on the floor. All the same, he stubbed his toe on something that felt like a log and rolled slightly away from his aborted step. The laughter increased, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

"Padawan, how many times have I told you to not turn the practice rooms into your personal jungle?" Aric yelled out into the darkness, his voice loud, but not angry. "We have gardens for you to play in. Keep the plants in your room."

"But bored, they were. Need a vacation they do."

"Oh, no." Aric started backing up. "You didn't. Yoda, tell me you didn't..." Aric nearly jumped out of his cloak at the swipe of a tongue against his ankle. The log was coming after him.

"Stand perfectly still." The voice was no longer as joking as it was before, but the laughter was still there, always barely hidden beneath the surface. "Eat you he won't. Just a little nibble. After all, kick him you did."

The tongue was replaced by a long, cool, muscular body wrapping around his ankle. By the lengthy feel of it, the creature must be the oldest python in the Temple gardens, an immense snake from one of the last wildernesses on Coruscant. It traveled slowly up his legs, wrapping him tight in its thick coils. Aric took Yoda's advice and didn't move. He tried concentrating on the snake, to tell it to leave him alone, but as a permanent member of the Jedi Temple community, the python was fairly immune to any kind of Force suggestion. It serenely kept up it slow crawl up the young knight's body, its tongue tasting out his hands, his chest.

"Any help would be hot." Silence. Not even that infectious laughter. "Padawan? Yoda?" The snake tasted his nose, a cool, ticklish flick of a tongue against his face. A Jedi did not know fear...but most Jedi weren't face to face with a snake twice their size.

The lights flared up, imprinting a nightmarish image of a giant diamond-shaped head only centimeters from his own. It definitely was the old python. Flat black eyes stared into his own, lidless, unmoving. He always stayed far away from the creature when he was in the gardens; Aric was never good with snakes, or any of the animals. Aric shivered, sucking in a tremorous breath that wheezed against the slowly squeezing snakecoils caging his chest. Nibble the python might, but the size of that mouth could easily consume his entire head.

In the middle of his near-panic, Aric could feel a small disturbance in the Force. It wasn't a prescient vision or a sense of danger, but a soothing feeling of peace that flowed up around him. The bruising hold on his body lessened, until the python was just holding on to his body, not squeezing. The black eyes, though, remained trained on his face. Aric didn't even try to move.

"Apology he wants."

"What?" Aric looked around, and found his young Padawan staring up at him with guileless green eyes. The young Jedi barely reached to his knees, a diminutive creature still growing into his adolescence. Despite his youth and his small size, the young Padawan was strong in the Force, wise beyond his years. Sometimes Aric felt as though he were still a Padawan, and his apprentice was really his master.

"Apologize for kicking him you will, and let you go he might." Yoda patted the snake with a three-fingered hand.

Feeling a little silly, Aric addressed the python in his most sincere voice. "I am sorry for kicking you. It was dark, and I didn't know you were there. I apologize."

The black eyes didn't blink, but the tongue flicked out several times, as though tasting the truth of his words. After a long moment, the coils loosened, and the snake sloughed off his body. Aric hissed in a long, deep breath, his hands rubbing over his chest. The large python crawled across the floor, joining a small group of six other, smaller snakes that Aric could only assume came from the gardens.

"Thank you, Padawan. How did you know?"

Yoda shrugged, his brown braid flopping against his chest. "Told me he did. Angry you made him when ignored his presence. Always right there he is. A log he is not." Yoda turned his face, staring after the giant python with an uncommon understanding. His connection to living things always amazed Aric; his own abilities ran more towards events and actions rather than creatures. He was as eager to learn from his Padawan as he was to teach him.

When Yoda looked back, amusement had returned to his face. "Judged him by his size, you did--eat you he would not. A lesson he taught, I think. Step on him again, you will not."

"Sometimes I wonder which of us is the Master, my young Padawan," Aric confessed, leaning down to squeeze Yoda's shoulder. Yoda smiled widely, his long ears twitching. "Now, I think it is time for you to return your friends to their place in the gardens. Before anyone else mistakes someone for a log."

"Yes, Master," Yoda sighed, his ears falling. "But bored they will be."

"You can visit them later. I am sure you can keep them entertained." Yoda bowed briefly before running towards the small community of snakes. He spoke adamantly towards them, as though they could understand his speech. Perhaps they could; after a short explanation, Yoda picked up the smallest snake, wrapped it around his shoulders and led the small band in a parade down the corridor. Even the aged python followed docilely, not even glancing back at Master Aric before leaving the salle.

Tomorrow, they would have to have a talk about life forms and their proper place in the Temple. It wouldn't do to have Yoda decide the reptiles of the garden needed a vacation to their quarters. Aric shuddered at the thought of waking with a snake wrapped around him. Yes, they would have to speak about this soon.

A shriek came from the corridor, followed by a loud, "Move you will not!"

Perhaps they should talk about it tonight. "Padawan!"


End file.
